Vincent Gigante biography

Synopsis

Mob Life

Mob boss Vincent Gigante was born on March 29, 1928, in New York City. Known for wandering the streets in a bathrobe mumbling to himself, Vincent Gigante is one of the strangest gangsters of our time. The suspected boss of the Genovese crime family, his supporters say the former boxer took one too many shots to the head and was incapable of running a massive crime syndicate.

After a boxing career that lasted 24 fights, joining the Army and subsequently being discharged for "anti-social behavior," Gigante took up a life of crime. Gigante's rise through the world of organized crime was bizarre. He was chosen by Capo Tommy Eboli to murder Genovese family boss Frank Costello, but botched the hit. Most would have thought that this mistake would have ended Gigante's life, but inexplicably he had risen to the rank of consigliere by the mid-1970s.

When Genovese family boss Tony Salerno suffered a stroke in 1981 and took a six month hiatus to recover, it is suspected that the Genovese family appointed Gigante as boss. Salerno was still presented as the family boss, but it was known within the organized crime world that Gignate ran the family.

Insincere Insanity

After Salerno was sent to prison in 1992, Gigante was revealed as the head of the family. With no one to hide behind, Gigante resorted to a tactic he had used to beat earlier attempts at criminal convictions, he acted insane. Between 1969 and 1990, Gigante checked himself into a psychiatric hospital 22 times. The sight of Gigante walking through the streets of Greenwich Village dressed in a bathrobe and mumbling to himself became common.

This act worked until 1997, when Salvatore Gravano testified that Gigante was sane and was the head of the Genovese family. He was convicted of numerous counts related to racketeering and murder conspiracy and received a 12-year prison sentence.

Conviction

After his 1997 conviction, Gigante faced new charges in 2003. He admitted that he had been faking his mental problems for roughly three decades to avoid having to stand trial. Pleading guilty to an obstruction of justice charge, Gigante received an additional three years on his original sentence.

Death

One of the most unusual characters in criminal history, Gigante passed away on December 19, 2005, at the age of 77. He died at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.

Unlike the elaborate funerals of other crime bosses, such as John Gotti in 2002, Gigante's passing was honored quietly. His brother, Reverend Louis Gigante, a retired Roman Catholic priest, held a funeral mass for him. The service took place in a church in the same New York City neighborhood that Vincent Gigante spent so many years wandering as a mental patient.

© 2013 A+E Networks. All rights reserved.